I wrote a post a couple of days ago about bushfires and politics. It got more views than my usual posts (not that that’s saying much – this is for myself as much as it is for anyone else) but I realised that I hadn’t shared my own personal views about the fires – my own reflections as a member of the RFS. I’ve been a member of Orchard Hills for about three or four years now. I’m not the most experienced in the brigade, nor the best firefighter. Instead, I’m a bit of an enthusiastic amateur. This is the first real fire that I’ve seen – I’ve been to motor vehicle accidents, and grass fires and even a few structural fires, but I haven’t seen anything like this before, so I reckon it’s a valuable time to share some of my reflections about the fire.
The first is that there is something militaristic about the whole thing. It’s not just the predominance of men – although the RFS is weighted quite heavily towards men – and it’s not the machines, appliances and equipment, although both of these factors are part of it. I’m comparing it to my very brief career in the ARA, but as I was standing with my line out the back of St Columba’s, at about 3am on Friday morning, waiting for the fire to come racing up the gully, it was almost like we were preparing for attack. There was a kind of unreality and a stillness to the whole time. In the distance, I could see the glow from the fire, and if I strained my ears, I could hear the crackling of twigs and branches as they burnt, but there was, for the moment, nothing I could do: just wait as it crept closer and closer. I knew that there was the potential for great danger – I mean, firefighters do die – look at the tragedy in Arizona earlier in the year for an example of that – but it seemed distant, as if it wasn’t every going to happen.
The second thing that struck me was simply the size of the operation – and the potential for bad things to happen very quickly. There were incredible numbers of trucks driving around, in smoke as thick as anything I’ve ever seen. There were animals that had tried to escape, as well as snakes and other wildlife rushing around. We were working in tricky terrain – lots of steep gullies, that were made more challenging by the fact that we were lugging heaving equipment around, and everything was soaking wet. To be honest, it’s incredible that there have been so few injuries.